"Of all the people for House Republican freshmen to pick as their front man for a stunt about fiscal responsibility, they picked Representative Rick Crawford who couldn't even pay his own credit card bills and went bankrupt because of it," Ferguson said in a statement.

According to press accounts during Crawford's campaign, he declared bankruptcy in 1994 over $12,611.67 in debt - mostly for credit cards.

Even better: Front-runner Mike Huckabee thinks we'd be better off if Christianity were forced upon us at gunpoint. Seriously: at gunpoint. (But he doesn't want us to know...)

Huckabee has just been caught on video, at a Christian supremacist conference, stating that Americans should be forcibly indoctrinated at gunpoint. The organization which hosted the “Rediscover God In America” conference, United in Purpose, has edited Huckabee’s comment from footage of his speech, but not before People For The American Way’s Kyle Mantyla captured the unedited footage, in which Mike Huckabee states, “I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”

David Barton is the leading promoter of a brand of falsified American history altered to support the claim that America was founded as a Christian, rather than a secular, nation. As Chris Rodda, who has authored an entire book debunking Barton’s brand of pseudo-history, writes,

I was quite surprised… to come across a video clip from this conference on the People for the American Way (PFAW) Right Wing Watch blog with the headline “Huckabee: Americans Should Be Forced, At Gunpoint, To Learn From David Barton.” I had watched Huckabee’s speech. How on earth could I have missed a statement like that? Well, I didn’t. It had been edited out of the webcast that I had watched.

[Emphasis mine. Because it's good to know.]

Oh, and speaking of what he doesn't want us to know, it seems the Huckster felt the need to destroy all records of his governorship.

Whadda guy. We're gonna be in great hands.

Finally (only because I can only spend so much time on any post), let's see where we're headed with teabaggR reforms. Are we all on board with ending Medicare?

As House Republicans cue up their Medicare Phase-out legislation, we're about to be treated, once again, to an example of how political actors use press cowardice to deceive the public. Rep. Paul Ryan's plan, which is now the official Republican plan, phases out Medicare over 10 years...

The Medicare system has been in place in the United States for a bit more than 40 years. The premise is simple: once you hit retirement age you move into a single payer health care insurance system in which Medicare takes responsibility for your care, regardless of the state of your health or income level. There are copays. No one's crazy about exactly how much is covered. Some doctors opt out. You've probably heard all of this at one point or another. But the key is that you're in the program. And for the rest of your life you're out of the private health insurance system. You're covered. Permanently and on the same terms as everyone else....

... The Ryan plan is to get rid of Medicare and in place of it give seniors a voucher to buy health care insurance from private insurers. Now, what if you can't buy as much as insurance or as much care as you need? Well, start saving now or just too bad.

Now, by any reasonable standard, that's getting rid of Medicare. Abolishing Medicare. Phasing it out. Whatever you want to call it. Medicare is this single payer program that guarantees seniors health care, as noted above. Ryan's plan pushes seniors into the private markets and give them a voucher. That's called getting rid of the program. There's simply no ifs or caveats about. That's not cuts or slowing of the growth. That's abolishing the whole program. Saying anything else is a lie.

Yep, those insurers will be competing for the business of paying for care of the sick and dying, and will fall over themselves to offer a better deal than the other guy. Think of the money we'll save.

So. Far be it from me to suggest teabaggRs have elected stupid and dishonest people, and people whose ideas come pre-failed and historically discredited. Nope. I just report. You decide.

Sid my man: I don't know how you swiped that picture of me blindly following my once vivacious and multiple times a day young wife....nice job...I forget to destroy it when I cleaned out my desk.

Last fall, I had the opportunity to find out lst hand how the medical system I spend 40 years in as a surgeon looks to the Patient..I lay down for spine surgery at my own-built hospital in Monterey. Surgeon fee: $27,000 and hospital bill $163,200 (six days). Medicare and AARP paid surgeon $3,500 and hospital $16,000. Without insurance which said "above the allowable charge" I would have been killed. All was covered. In England, at age 76, I would have, despite the fact my right leg would collapse and I could not walk due to pain, I might have been put on a wait list. (He's old, we pay him, let him wait..we could get lucky..he could die) The "system" (medical) was great, and I have 100 percent recovery and fish, shovel snow and jog again...but my god, the numbers. The system is BROKEN...and the docs and hospitals and insurance companies are playing this situation as if they were on the 18th hole, or last of the 9th with two outs. Moral: if you have something that needs to be fixed...get it done now.

Good question, Jim, and one which I think about often. I could learn to speak Canadian, I'm pretty sure. Fact is, though, at the moment there's no country that seems on predictably solid footing.

Sweden? There, people seem willing to pay more to get more. A little dreary in winter, maybe, even for a Pacific Northwest native.

I'm getting to the point of thinking we oughta throw in the towel, and let teabaggerism run its course, let Ryan's budget become the law of the land, even with its magic numbers and silly assumptions (to put it in a non-demagogic way.) I suppose on some level it would be entertaining.

Problem is, given the precarious state of our economy, our failing infrastructure, our underfunded education, by the time the facts of its failures are undeniable, it'll be too late.

I like New Zealand... except for the fact it sits right on the ring of fire. But then again, we've gotta purdy good fire going on here (as in Rome is burning). Norway is purdy wet also, but at least us NW types could take our rain gear with us. I'm ready.

Watever... Canada? Schweden? When the Scheisse hits the Fan and even Vermonts full of N-words, thats when Frankie D's packin up his game and headin to Ams-ter-effin-Damn...Holland that is, Swimmin Pools, Transvestites...Legal Marriage-wanna, Prostitution, and...Umm thats ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!OK, they have free Healthcare too...I mean the "Anne Frank House"

For The Sake of My Sanity

Some will know me from my other blog, "Surgeonsblog." Of late I've given over to frothing at the mouth as the world descends into stupidity, and our politics and our citizens seem, in numbers enough to be meaningful, unable to see it. So for now I'm leaving surgery writing behind, if for no other reason than to defuse and diffuse my unrelenting sense of doom, and with no expectation of making a difference. These are things that, to me, are obvious. Except that, apparently, they aren't.

RWS™

RWS™: For those who drop by here in the middle, and wonder what it means: it's my shorthand for Right Wing Screamers, which includes such a long list it's tiresome to type it. (I distinguish these blowhards from thoughtful conservatives, of whom I sort of take it on faith that there must still be some.) You know who I mean: Palin, Beck, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, Breitbart (RIP), Malkin, Savage, Levin, Ingraham, Doocey (more of a drooler than a screamer), Hewitt, Goldberg, Gingrich, Kristol, Scarborough (+/-), Bachmann, Inhofe, Bond, Broun, Boehner, Kelley, Santorum, Cain. To name but a few. Behold them in their unrepentant disregard for reality: the RWS™